Sanjay and Priya met through a matrimonial website and tied the knot in September 2006. Sanjay was working as a development officer with a leading telecom firm, while his wife was employed as HR manager with a renowned airline company.

“Things were fine till July 2010, when a man named Manish came to our neighbourhood as a paying guest. His relationship with my wife became intense. Whenever I objected she said he was just a friend. A month later my wife got pregnant. Suspecting nothing, I was over the moon,” Sanjay told MiD DAY.

Representational picture

To welcome his yet unborn child, Sanjay bought a flat worth Rs 1 crore in Powai. Manish was a regular visitor here too. In 2012, Priya delivered a boy. Sanjay was disconcerted when people said the child bore no resemblance to him. Meanwhile, the bond between Priya and Manish grew stronger and they met frequently when Sanjay went out of town, which was often.

Finally, on October 2012 Sanjay decided to perform a DNA test on the child and himself, without Priya’s knowledge. He underwent the exam at a reputed laboratory in Borivli. Eventually his wife found out and filed a dowry case at Sakinaka police station. Following the FIR, Sanjay was picked up and sent to Arthur Road Jail for two days. “I lost my job because of the case. I had to spend two nights behind bars with dreaded criminals,” he lamented.

When he came out of jail, Sanjay realised that his wife had left with the child. Priya also filed a domestic violence case against her husband. Sanjay was shocked and traumatised in November 2012, when he found out that he wasn’t the father of the boy.

The reports confirmed paternity exclusion. “I was finished. I was devastated on learning this. I had nowhere to go and ‘my son’ was not mine. I had lost my job. I had a case against me. This was blatant misuse of dowry laws by a woman who had cheated,” he told MiD DAY.

With the help of advocates Bashir Patel and Hrishikesh Mundargi, Sanjay filed a case against Priya with the DNA reports and recorded communication between his wife and Manish as evidence.

On August 3, the Andheri court ordered that a case be lodged against Priya, her alleged lover Manish, Priya’s father, and a woman living in the neighbourhood.

A case was registered under sections 420 (cheating), 497 (adultery), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 380 (theft) and 34 (common intention) on August 15. The matter is now in court.

-- Names of the accused and complainant have been changed

The Other Side “I have not received a copy of the FIR. I will cooperate in investigations and my husband will get all the answers. I faced domestic violence for six months and was physically and mentally tortured. All the charges are false, and I will prove this in court,” Priya told MiD DAY.